then went homeward by way of
Verona, where Ruskin wrote an account of the Cavalli monuments for the
Arundel society, and Venice, where he returned to the study of
Carpaccio. At Rome he had been once more to the Sistine, and found that
on earlier visits the ceiling and the Last Judgment had taken his
attention too exclusively. Now that he could look away from Michelangelo
he become conscious of the claims of Botticelli's frescoes, which
represent, in the Florentine school, somewhat the same kind of interest
that he had found in Carpaccio. He became enamoured of Botticelli's
Zipporah, and resolved to study the master more closely. On reaching
home he had to prepare "The Eagle's Nest" for publication; in the
preface he gave special importance to Botticelli, and amplified it in
lectures on early engraving, that Autumn;[27] in which I remember his
quoting with appreciation the passage on the Venus Anadyomene from
Pater's "Studies in the Renaissance" just published.

[Footnote 27: "Ariadne Florentina," delivered on Nov. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30,
and Dec. 7, and repeated on the following Thursdays. Ruskin's first
mention of Botticelli was in the course on Landscape, Lent Term, 1871.]

This sudden enthusiasm about an unknown painter amused the Oxford
public: and it became a standing joke among the profane to ask who was
Ruskin's last great man. It was in answer to that, and in expression of
a truer understanding than most Oxford pupils attained, that Bourdillon
of Worcester wrote on "the Ethereal Ruskin,"--that was Carlyle's name
for him:--

"To us this star or that seems bright,
And oft some headlong meteor's flight
Holds for awhile our raptured sight.

"But he discerns each noble star;
The least is only the most far,
Whose worlds, may be, the mightiest are."

The critical value of this course however, to a student of art-history,
is impaired by his using as illustrations of Botticelli, and of the
manner of engraving which he took for standard, certain plates which
were erroneously attributed to the artist. "It is strange," he wrote in
despair to Professor Norton, "that I hardly ever get anything stated
without some grave mistake, however true in my main discourse." But in
this case a fate stronger than he had taken him unawares. The
circumstances do not extenuate the error of the Professor, but they
explain the difficulties under which his work was done. The cloud that
rested on his own life was the result of a strange and wholly unexpected
tragedy in another's.

It was an open secret--his attachment to a lady, who had been his pupil,
and was now generally understood to be his _fiancée_. She was far
younger than he; but at fifty-three he was not an old man; and the
friends who fully knew and understood the affair favoured his intentions
and joined in the hope, and in auguries for the happiness for which he
had been so long waiting. But now that it came to the point the lady
finally decided that it was impossible. He was not at one with her in
religious matters. He could speak lightly of her evangelical creed--it
seemed he scoffed in "Fors" at her faith. She could not be unequally
yoked with an unbeliever. To her, the alternative was plain; the choice
was terrible: yet, having once seen her path, she turned resolutely
away.[28]

[Footnote 28: In former editions the following sentence was added:
"Three years after, as she lay dying, he begged to see her once more.
She sent to ask whether he could yet say that he loved God better than
he loved her; and when he said 'No,' her door was closed upon him for
ever." The statement was suggested by information from Ruskin in later
days. I must, however, have misrepresented the facts, as the lady's
mother has left it in writing that no such incident occurred.]

Meanwhile, in the bitterest despair he sought refuge as he had done
before, in his work. He accepted the lesson, though he, too, could not
recant; still he tried to correct his apparent levity in the renewed
seriousness and more earnest tone of "Fors," speaking more plainly and
more simply, but without concession. He wrote on the next Christmas Eve
to an Aberdeen Bible-class teacher:

"If you care to give your class a word directly from me, say to
them that they will find it well, throughout life, never to trouble
themselves about what they ought _not_ to do, but about what they
_ought_ to do. The condemnation given from the Judgment
Throne--most solemnly described--is all for the _undones_ and not
for the _dones_. People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but
unless they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day
long, and the degree does not matter. Make your young hearers
resolve to be honest in their work in this life. Heaven will take
care of them for the other."

That was all he could say: he did not _know_ there was another life: he
_hoped_ there was: and yet, if he were not a saint or a Christian, was
there any man in the world who was nearer to the kingdom of Heaven than
this stubborn heretic?

His heretical attitude was singular. He was just as far removed from
adopting the easy antagonism of science to religion as from siding with
religion against science. In a paper singularly interesting--and in his
biography important--on the "Nature and Authority of Miracle," read to
the Metaphysical Society (February 11, 1873), he tried to clear up his
position and to state a qualified belief in the supernatural.

With that year expired the term for which he had been elected to the
Slade Professorship, and in January 1873 he was re-elected. In his first
three years he had given five courses of lectures designed to introduce
an encyclopædic review and reconstruction of all he had to say upon art.
Beginning with general principles, he had proceeded to their application
in history, by tracing certain phases of Greek sculpture, and by
contrasting the Greek and the Gothic spirit as shown in the treatment of
landscape, from which he went on to the study of early engraving. The
application of his principles to theory was made in the course on
Science and Art ("The Eagle's Nest"). Now, on his re-election, he
proceeded to take up these two sides of his subject, and to illustrate
this view of the right way to apply science to art, by a course on
Birds, in Nature, Art and Mythology, and next year by a study of Alpine
forms. The historical side was continued with lectures on Niccola Pisano
and early Tuscan sculpture, and in 1874 with an important, though
unpublished, course on Florentine Art.

It is to this cycle of lectures that we must look for that matured
Ruskinian theory of art which his early works do not reach; and which
his writings between 1860 and 1870 do not touch. Though the Oxford
lectures are only a fragment of what he ought to have done, they should
be sufficient to a careful reader; though their expression is sometimes
obscured by diffuse treatment, they contain the root of the matter,
thought out for fifteen years since the close of the more brilliant, but
less profound, period of "Modern Painters."

The course on Birds[29] was given in the drawing school at the
University Galleries. The room was not large enough for the numbers that
crowded to hear Professor Ruskin, and each of these lectures, like the
previous and the following courses, had to be repeated to a second
audience. Great pains had been given to their preparation--much greater
than the easy utterance and free treatment of his theme led his hearers
to believe. For these lectures and their sequel, published as "Love's
Meinie," he collected an enormous number of skins--to compare the
plumage and wings of different species; for his work was with the
_outside_ aspect and structure of birds, not with their anatomy. He had
models made, as large as swords, of the different quill-feathers, to
experiment on their action and resistance to the air. He got a valuable
series of drawings by H.S. Marks, R.A., and made many careful and
beautiful studies himself of feathers and of birds at the Zoological
Gardens, and the British Museum; and after all, he had to conclude his
work saying, "It has been throughout my trust that if death should write
on these, 'What this man began to build, he was not able to finish,' God
may also write on them, not in anger, but in aid, 'A stronger than he
cometh.'"

[Footnote 29: March 15, May 2 and 9; repeated March 19, May 5, and 12,
1873.]

Two of the lectures on birds were repeated at Eton[30] before the boys'
Literary and Scientific Society and their friends; and between this and
1880 Ruskin often went to address the same audience, with the same
interest in young people that had taken him in earlier years to
Woolwich.

[Footnote 30: May 10 and 17.]

After a long vacation at Brantwood, the first spent there, he went up to
give his course on Early Tuscan Art ("Val d'Arno")[31]. The lectures
were printed separately and sold at the conclusion and the first numbers
were sent to Carlyle, whose unabated interest in his friend's work was
shown in his letter of Oct. 31st: "_Perge, perge_;--and, as the Irish
say, 'more power to your elbow!' I have yet read this 'Val d'Arno' only
once. Froude snatched it away from me yesterday; and it has then to go
to my brother at Dumfries. After that I shall have it back...."

During that summer and autumn Ruskin suffered from nights of
sleeplessness or unnaturally vivid dreams and days of unrest and
feverish energy, alternating with intense fatigue. The eighteen lectures
in less than six weeks, a "combination of prophecy and play-acting," as
Carlyle had called it in his own case, and the unfortunate discussion
with an old-fashioned